1.Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical contact element intended to be applied to refrigerators and similar which are provided with doors whose position of opening and closure determines the state of the said contact element. More particularly, the contact element, which may take the form of an on-off switch or a changeover switch, is capable of assuming different states when the door is closed or open, and this contact element is mainly, but not exclusively, intended for switching a lamp on to illuminate the storage space of the refrigerator when the door is opened. The term refrigerator also includes freezers of the chest and cabinet types.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known that refrigerators may be required by their purchasers to have doors which open by rotation either in one direction or in an opposite direction. There is also a known way of mounting, on one wall of the storage space of the refrigerator, a unit comprising an electrical contact element, a lamp controlled by this element, and a protective device, generally made from transparent or translucent material, for the lamp. The electrical contact element is operated by the door inner liner (which, as it is known, forms the inner part of the door) in such a way that the lamp is switched on when the door opens, enabling the contents of the storage space to be seen, and is switched off when the door is closed. The main problem which arises is that this unit is mounted on one or other of the vertical walls delimiting the storage space, according to the direction of opening of the door, and frequently, to make this possible, the said units provided for one direction of rotation of the door differ to some extent from those for rotation in the opposite direction.